


PUNCTURE WOUND

by jedusaur



Series: Cause and Correlation of Death [3]
Category: Machine of Death - ed. Bennardo/Malki/North, White Collar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 05:30:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedusaur/pseuds/jedusaur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first one is just a doodle on scrap paper, a quick little sketch of himself with a knife in his neck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	PUNCTURE WOUND

It’s a requirement for the deal. Everyone working for the FBI in any capacity has to get tested. There’s no way around the rule.

“Do I have to know?” asks Neal. “Can you just look at my result and put it in my file and not tell me what it says?”

Peter shoots him an incredulous look. “Are you trying to tell me you don’t intend to access your file the first chance you get? Because I’m not gonna buy that.”

Neal does fully intend to do that, it’s true. He won’t be able to resist. If the information exists, he’ll get his hands on it whether he wants to or not. This is why he doesn’t want to do the test in the first place.

“Well?” asks Peter. “What’ll it be? Prison or New York City?” And that’s a dirty fucking play.

*

The first one is just a doodle on scrap paper, a quick little sketch of himself with a knife in his neck. Neal stares at it for a long, long time, picturing himself in that position. He tilts his head to match the angle he drew, imagines the blade slicing through his skin and muscle, catching on his larynx and scraping against his spine.

He recreates it later in acrylics, on the top left corner of a three-by-four canvas. Then he paints another little Neal next to it, this one stabbed in the heart. Another: a shard of glass. Another: a tree branch. He fills the canvas with dozens of little bleeding figures over the course of a few months, and it helps.

*

Mozzie won’t do it.

“Everyone working for the FBI in any capacity has to get tested,” says Peter.

“Well, that’s just too bad for any suits out there who might be in need of my considerable talents,” Mozzie announces, and sticks up his nose.

Neal pulls Peter back far enough that Peter probably thinks Mozzie can’t hear, although Mozzie doesn’t bother to pretend he isn’t listening. “Either you break a stupid bureaucratic rule now and he helps us, or we break three to four laws depending on whether I can get my hands on the entry code without impersonating a police officer.”

“I don’t get it,” says Peter. “Why don’t you criminals ever want to know how you’re going to die? Wouldn’t it be helpful?”

“I bet you read the endings of books first, don’t you?” Mozzie says loudly. “I bet you read plot summaries of movies on Wikipedia before you see them. I bet when you look at porn you watch the comeshot first to make sure you’re not wasting--”

“Are you secretly a _bat?_ ” Peter demands.

He ends up letting Mozzie skip the test. The result they put in his file says CURIOSITY, and Neal doesn’t know where Mozzie found it. Seems plausible enough, anyway.

*

Neal comes home one day to find Peter staring at one of the canvases. It’s a full-size painting of a medieval javelin sticking out of Neal’s face. The others are all propped up against the corner of the table, not where Neal left them.

Neal takes them all away without a word. Peter doesn’t object. He’s probably been trying to force himself to look away for a while already.

After a slightly awkward silence, Peter says, “They look just like you.” That’s kind of the point, which he clearly already knows, because he hastens to add, “I mean, even the ones where your face is covered in blood. The most disturbing part isn’t the blood, it’s that I could still tell it was you.”

Peter’s always been confident in his skin in Neal’s experience, but the way he’s standing looks uncomfortable, like he doesn’t quite know where his center of gravity is. Like he’s out of his depth, somehow.

“I’d be able to tell,” Peter says. “If it really was you, lying on the ground covered in blood.” He shakes his head slowly. “You’re a very distinct man, Neal Caffrey.”

It sounds like a compliment and an insult at the same time. Peter’s unpleasantly good at that.

*

Neal ends up staying. Not because he’s a reformed man, not because he’s afraid of jail, and definitely not because of the fucking anklet. He stays because adventure doesn’t seem quite so necessary to his story, now that he’s read the end.


End file.
